Hillsborough survivors

Derek Pickup:

Say a pray this wednesday for the the first scouser to die at a football match Nigel Pickup aged 8 yrs from Prescot at the Ibrox Disaster 1971. My cousin. I also was at heysel, hillsborough and john paul gillhooly lived 10 doors down from were I lived in huyton. Devastating to reflect and think that you can lose your life for a game we all love.

The build up to the match was fantastic, I took 16 lads in a van. Getting into the lepping lane was horrendous as everyone knows. I heard someone on the radio recently suggest something I said for years, when Peter Beardsley hit the crossbar after 3 mins the surge down the tunnel would have been more catastrophic if he would have scored. A youngster on my left was being crushed, me being 6 ft 3 he asked for assistance in getting up onto a barrier and he just swandived onto people in the front, panic stricten only god knows if he got out.

My mate and I both pussed to the back of the terrace got onto the wall at the side of the tunnel and just put our hands up and we got into the top tier. 13 of us returned in that van 3 others were found wondering around sheffield in a daze. I remember we stopped at a pub on the way back to use the phone but the manager locked the doors and refused access. We all just cryed listing to the eternal flame song on the radio in the van on the drive homeThe memorial at the ground was unbelievable yet i still felt angry with liverpool because after a few weeks they were closing the ground to play a youth team game when there were still thousands outside every day waiting to pay their respects.But i later realised there had to be a cut of point. After heysel my mother said we've lost one child in this family you'll never go to another match, low and behold 4 years later the same scenario. It breaks my heart to reflect but you put into prospective what is important in life. god rest their soles.

Iain Dods:

I was in the back of the North Stand that day. I suffered the crush at the gates as we all had to come through that bottle-neck. I still feel utterly empty when I think about it. I saw some injured people on the pitch but never thought they had died. I left not knowing what had happened. It was a sunny day. All the coaches had radios on with the doors open as I walked up to wear I'd parked my car. The commentary was Everton v Norwich with updates from the situation from Hillsborough. As I passed a coach, I heard 6 people had died. Another few hundred yards, 10 minutes or so, - it was 14. After reaching my car, 30 minutes away - it had risen to 74 I think. I still feel cold at the thought. There were no available phone boxes to call my parents to let them know I was safe. Each had a vast queue. It took me another 1 hour to find one. A few other Liverpool fans were there, in tears, as I was. It's a bond we all share. We're all haunted and think of the fans who died and their families. We were the lucky ones. We can demand justice for those who cannot speak. We will not forget.

jay cadman,skelmersdale

i was at the game,in the leppings lane end as a 15 year old-my strongest memory of that day was the line of press photographers stood directly in front of the terrace snapping away at the dead and dying whilst fans and st johns ambulance staff struggled past them to free people. I hope it's the last memory those photographers have when they pass away themselves.

Andy:

I was there that day and to this day I don't really know how I got out of that crush - it was terrible. I remember trying to help the man behind me who was crushed against a barrier, I tried to push back but it was no use, he pleaded with me to help, I tried his voice haunts me still. 20 years on I take my own boys to Anfield but never a day goes by without me thinking about that bloody day.

Paul Snowdon, Maghull, Liverpool:

I was in the Leppings Lane End that terrible day but through fate by the time I arrived at the ground - I guess around 2.15pm - and got into the concourse area behind the West Stand I could already see through the infamous connecting tunnel that the middle section of terracing right behind the goal was already very full. I had been in that section 12 months before for the 1988 semi-final against Forest and recalled how packed it was that day with plenty of the usual squashing you got on the terraces in those days. I was only 21 at the time but for whatever reason, I just didn't fancy a repeat, even though right behind the goal was always the best place for atmosphere. So, by luck, I happened to spot a couple of stewards chatting in the area and asked how did you get to the side pens. I was told to go around the back of the stand and within a minute or two I was in the virtually empty side pen on the South Stand side of Hillsborough. I am convinced to this day that that decision I took saved my life. I was just one of the thousands of lucky ones who came home that day.R.I.P. The 96.

simon weedy:

Difficult day today, 1989 feels like yesterday, i can remember every detail so vividly. There was absolutely no reason why my mate and I, Kop season ticket holders, decided to turn left when we went through the tunnel. But that's what we did and it saved us. We were lucky. Every game we were regulars behind the goal, right in the middle of the songs, the crack, the banter. So why didn't we stay with habit on that day? I'll never know. My mate and I got to Hillsborough early and went through the turnstiles into leppings lane straight away. Emerging from that tunnel into the sunlight, we were some of the first people in the ground. Then, stood in that central pen, we decided to stand somewhere different. Just for a change. So we went and stood in the far left corner.

The atmosphere built up as it does but I couldn't understand why, about 2.30, that our section was still half empty and the middle was absolutely packed. Even when people started spilling on the pitch we didn't grasp what was going on and stood around for what felt like ages, watching it all unfold. The kick off, beardsley hitting the bar, the players going off, the police cordon. When the gates were eventually opened to everyone, we wandered onto the pitch and started walking around aimlessly, wondering if our mates were ok. They were but it was only later that one of them told me he'd started to go down the tunnel (after arriving later than us) but turned around because it was already too packed. He was lucky.

What will stay with me most was wandering around the pitch, seeing people, young and old laid out, with blue faces and telling my mate, who wouldn't believe it, that these people were dead. I'd never seen a dead body before but I knew death when I saw it. It was surreal. And then the walk back to the station to go home to lancaster, looking for a phone box to call home but queues 20 deep for each phone. Finally getting through, the relief, the tears, the disbelief. To this day, I don't know why we stood somewhere different. I often ask myself that question. I was 18 then, now I'm an average Joe, married 38 year-old journalist with two children who are too young to know about what happened, but they will one day. Hillsborough was horrific but it's part of who I am. I was lucky, I got to go home. We can never, ever forget.